False Pretenses
A complex murder-suicide case has the department reeling. Meanwhile, when Rusty receives a mysterious and threatening letter Emma demands that he be relocated. Torn between her desire to protect Rusty and professional duty to the case, Raydor is forced to seriously consider Emma’s request. The Victim *Janet Bloom *William Edwards The Suspects *Dwayne Bloom *Stewart Ness *Tyler Allen Evidence Closing the Case After discovering that William Edwards has been robbed, the squad realizes that the murder-suicide was actually a robbery that was interrupted by his sister Janet coming home early. The robber took the drugs and money, put everything back and murdered Janet and William and made it look like a murder-suicide. Looking for clues, Tao and Flynn visit the owner of the murder weapon, Stewart Ness, a gay gossip blogger. Ness explains he was robbed of several things including the gun but never reported it as the robber was someone he was cheating on his boyfriend with. Ness explains he met the robber, who handcuffed him in the same way Edwards was, on a gay dating app, Dude Ranch. He is able to give a description of the robber and his car as well as give them the profile picture used by the robber when they met. Julio also finds three more robberies that are similar to Ness'. Tao signs up for the app and finds the picture on someone's phone about eight miles away. Tracking the location of the phone, they find a car matching Ness' description nearby. Julio activates the app to make it seem like he wants to get with the man, causing him to look at his phone and catching Sykes' attention. Flynn drives by with Ness who identifies the suspect as his robber and he is arrested. Provenza discovers from his license that he is Tyler Allen and the suspect car is confirmed to belong to him. In Tyler's apartment, they find prescriptions in the names of the people he robbed, padded handcuffs in his car and all four victims identify him as the robber. At Raydor's insistence, DDA Rios makes a deal on the robbery charges for four years for the four robbery charges that don't include the Edwards attempted robbery so that they don't draw Tyler's suspicion. Tyler agrees to the deal and explains that he's a budding musician who hasn't been able to get any gigs. He's gay and after meeting a rich person on the Dude Ranch app, stole one of his many watches which allowed him to pay his rent and was probably not even noticed by the victim. Emboldened and desperate, Tyler began robbing rich people of things they wouldn't miss to pay his bills until he got on his feet, not planning to make a career out of crime. As part of their plan, Rios has Tyler sign the deal with the names of the people who he robbed on it before leaving. Raydor then confronts Tyler with the fact that one of the people he just confessed to robbing is Stewart Ness who reported his gun stolen. Raydor reveals that the gun was used in an attempted robbery that matched Tyler's MO where a double homicide took place. She also lies that Edwards' blood and skin cells was on the handcuffs in his car. Tyler quickly tells them he read it was a murder-suicide, but Raydor lies that the press got it wrong, not telling him she had that deliberately leaked to the press to throw the killer off. Panicking, Tyler says it wasn't murder but panic and in doing so effectively confesses, allowing Julio to arrest him for the murders. Against his lawyer's advice, Tyler claims that he hadn't intended to kill anyone but panicked when Janet came home. However, no one believes him as after killing Janet, he went upstairs, left the laptops he was going to steal, rearranged the house to look like it wasn't robbed and murdered William Edwards who was handcuffed and helpless and staged it as a murder-suicide. During autopsy, Morales also found cotton fibers in Edwards' mouth, meaning that Tyler gagged him which Raydor speculates was so he wouldn't have to hear his pleas for his life. Tyler is arrested for premeditated murder and due to the violence of the crime, Rios intends to go for the death penalty in Tyler's case. Guest Cast *Christopher J. Hanke as Tyler Allen *P.J. Boudousque as Stewart Ness *Noah Weisberg as Roland Jennings *Brad Hunt as Dwayne Bloom *Ana Dela Cruz as Claudia Recurring *Ransford Doherty as Coroner's Investigator Kendall Locations Episode Notes *Starting in this episode, Rusty Beck begins getting threatening letters from someone connected to Phillip Stroh. This becomes a major plotline throughout season 2 concluding in "Return to Sender Part 2". Trivia Episode Media Category:Major Crimes Category:MC Season 2 Category:Episodes